What is AirLull^®

The AirLull^® is a 19"rack mounted autonomous operating device used to control the volume of cooling air of your data center cooling system.

In a data center the installed IT equipment is in control of their own need of cooling air. With the introduction of physical separation of cold cooling air and hot return air the control over the cooling air volume becomes an issue.

In a traditional setup of a data center hot aisle/cold aisle is an accepted best practice for cabinet layout. This design uses air conditioners, fans, and raised floors as a cooling infrastructure and focuses on separation of the inlet cold air and the exhaust hot air. Although the hot aisle/cold aisle layout provides a certain seperation of cold and hot air flows, this system functions as an 'open' cooling system. The air volume needed by the IT equipment is always available.

With physical seperation of cold and hot air free flow of air from the cold to the hot side of the cabinets is restricted. Therefore the supply of cold air should be in balance with the actual need of the installed IT equipment. To much air would overflow the IT equipment, to less air would starve the IT equipment.

The AirLull controls the airflow balance within a data center. When placed in a 19" cabinet the AirLull detects on the principle “no flow between cold and warm air areas” the balance of the airflow on the cold and the warm side of the cabinet. Although the AirLull detects locally, the result is valid for the whole dataroom. Whenever the AirLull detects an unbalance in the airflow a signal is sent to the control unit of the fans of the cooling system. As a result the fans will move faster or slower to correct the balance between the two airflows.